52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week # 42 theme is "Lost".

As we build our family trees, we try to find and add the census records for every direct ancestor, looking at all the household members and neighbors too. But in searching for my Grandpa, Charley,  in 1900,  I do not find him.  Another LOST relative.  By 1906 he married my Grandma in Oklahoma, and we have seen the marriage certificate. Someone had passed along a comment that "Charley went off and worked at a livery stable somewhere."  I believe he was saving up $ to get married and to buy land from a relative who homesteaded in Oklahoma.  So, a few years later, we were following the lives of a previous generation.  An uncle of Charley had gone to Colorado a few years earlier,  and a cousin went to the gold fields of Central City, Colorado.  (Sounds like a good place to save up $$ for coming marriage, huh?) The 1900 census for Cousin Ed, shows him in Central City as a "Hack Man".   Could that be like  a livery stable?  I think that my Grandpa Charley was not LOST at all but was caught between census records, and  had indeed "gone off and worked at a livery stable", before coming back to get married.  Among the unidentified pictures collected over time, we found this one which we thought was Cousin Ed with his children and pups.  Sure enough, a distant cousin identified the picture as his relative who was Edgar from Colorado.  So besides finding our "Lost" Grandpa, we found Cousin Ed, who wasn't lost at all.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  Week #36 theme is Exploration.

There are many ways to explore in genealogy searching: Online records, libraries, other people’s trees, newspapers, or in person. We have prepared by doing all of the above, and then headed out, off the beaten path, to visit the locations where our ancestors lived. So far, we have visited more than 25 locations in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. We took many, many photographs along the way and my husband has even painted watercolors of some locations. 

There are so many photographs, that I need to choose just one family line for this post. You will see where we explored our Griffin line, starting with John Griffin, immigrant from Wales, who arrived in Connecticut about 1640. We visited Granby and Simsbury, where roads, farms and even shopping centers bear the Griffin name. The photo below is a current day sheep farm on the original land called Griffin’s Farmstead. Of course the structure was not there in 1640.  John's son, Thomas, was born on that property, in 1658. 

Thomas Griffin was the father of Benoni Griffin,Sr.,  born 1714. His mill was located at The Falls, on the Farmington River, in Simsbury, CT. It was formerly owned by his grandfather, John Griffin. We found the Farmington River, but couldn't see The Falls. 

Although other siblings stayed in Connecticut, Benoni Griffin, jr. acquired a grant in Virginia, about 1784.  He settled in the area of Bath County, which is now Arbovale, West Virginia. The photo is of the view he would have seen of the Greenbrier River valley. 

 

His son Jonathan married Rachel Sharp and lived on Stony Creek, which is near the present city of Marlinton, West Virginia. We explored the area, still known as the Griffin land. Photo is of the working  farm there. 

After the Civil War, Jonathan’s son William and family migrated (by way of stops in Iowa and Missouri) to live in Montgomery County Kansas. Their homestead in current photo is still called Griffin Hill, and down the hill is the land belonging to William’s son, Samuel, my Gt.Grandfather.  This is where my Grandfather Charley Griffin was born, and probably road his horse up that trail to his Grandfather's home. 

In 1889, when land was opened in Oklahoma Territory, a claim was staked in William’s name, by his youngest son, Pete Griffin.  A few years later, Samuel’s widow, Lizzie, brought her family to that same property, west of Edmond, and homesteaded. Charley and his siblings helped to farm the land, near Waterloo Road and Portland.  Photo is of hay bales, as the land is still agricultural, although near one of the fastest growing cities in Oklahoma. 

Charley married Hattie McGill (of another 89er family) and for a time they farmed near Ahpeatone, in Cotton County OK.  My father, Dan Griffin, shared his boyhood memories of living in Cotton County, and fun with his brothers. We believe this is the house they lived in.

 The last photo is the house where Charley and family lived in Edmond, Oklahoma, where our own family memories include porch swings, marking our heights on the door frame, fun with cousins, celebrating Christmas and Fourth of July, and more. 

   

John J. Miller Civil War Story

"John Jackson Miller and Diana Mary Harris began their married life 40 miles from the home of his father (John Miller & Polly Sands), by the State Rd. Near Suttonville, W. VA, nearer the bride's family (Adonijah Harris & Sarah Ann Rodgers).

Thousands of soldiers passed by continually during the first year of the Civil War. John J. was an abolitionist, disagreeing with his father, about reimbursing slave owners. John J., Taylor Sutton and James Harris (all sons or sons-in-law of Adonijah Harris), were forced to hide in the mountains for months to escape rebel soldiers. Diana Mary, John's wife, was forced to support herself and four small children. John J. was taken prisoner in 186_ at the home of his father, a rebel. Upon the protest of his parents he was left in the home, a prisoner with two soldiers left to guard him.

The guards fell asleep one night and John J. escaped to his own home 40 miles away, wading through mush ice in the rivers 5 times. He was quite ill by the time he reached home. The illness proved to be measles, which all but two members of several families contracted, and which caused the deaths of Julia Ann Harris (unmarried) and Mrs. Elizabeth Jane "Harris" Sutton, mother of A. H. Sutton and Mrs. Sara 'Sutton' Stokes. Mrs. Sutton's death occurred on Feb 12, 1862.

Immediately after his escape the families were taken, in 1862, by government wagons to Clarksburg 175 miles away as refugees. This removal from the family home near Suttonville to Clarksburg, W.VA was made upon the advice and with the assistance of a friend, Col. Samuel Young, who was afterwards the founder of Radical, KS.

In the year 1864, the family was moved to Fairmont, WVA, where John Jackson Miller enlisted in the Union Army, leaving wife and four children. The family also lived a short time in Grafton WVA.

In the meantime the father of John Jackson Miller had lost everything possible in raids by bush-whackers, rebels, etc. and nothing left at the end of the war but a house with an attic filled with honey. He died about 1870.

After returning from one year's service at the close of the War, John J. Went back to his home near Suttonville and found all the buildings gone and the farm overgrown with saplings and weeds. Too discouraged to begin again in that place, he traded the land for 80 acres near Exira, Iowa where he moved his family. [My note: The William Griffin family mentioned in previous post were in the group traveling west as well.]

But then he heard about the Osage reservation land in the Kansas-Oklahoma territories being opened up for purchase. He left Iowa to make a claim but heard wild tales of difficulties with Indians.

Instead, they moved to Carthage MO. They eventually moved to Montgomery Co. KS in 1871, near Sycamore, or rather Lay Station as it was called at that time in Sycamore Township.. Named after Eli Lay, an early settler."

[My note: According to my data John Jackson Miller died in 1904, Canby OR. Diana Mary died in 1911 in Canby OR.]

This story was written by the late Claude Miller of Independence, KS, and contributed by another Miller descendant).

Grandpa Charley Griffin

Cotton County, Oklahoma, about 1915 or so. My Grandpa worked hard. His Dad died in Kansas and Gt. Grandmother Lizzie came to the brand new Oklahoma Territory to start over. Five sons and a daughter were put to work on the new farm, northwest of Edmond. Charley raised his three sons with a strong work ethic, and a love for learning. Now that we are learning of his heritage we find that the character traits have been passed along for many generations.